so you're calling if he shoves?

and if he flats, what turn cards are you not bombing?

My range here is QQ, 88 and royal flush draws.

^ QQ is generally a 4b so we really only have 88 for sets.

Pretty much this exact hand went down in our underground game last sunday with deep stacks. Two good/solid regs in a pot + a fish to the flop, and the 3 bettor folded AA right there on the flop when he got check/raised on this kind of flop by a tight reg.

He asked me after the game why he coudnt get better paid there and i told him the truth basically: you are simply playing too tight and your check-raising ranges+ stackoffranges are too tight so you just cant check/raise a set in that spot and get paid by a good experienced reg. You just cant.

Against a good reg that understands how narrow our check/raising range normally is on this board in a 3 bet pot deepstacked, i am leaning towards a flat here. We just have to widen our own range in order to not valueown ourself too often here, and avoid forcing AK/AA hands to fold on the flop wich is a disaster for us.

For sure that is true for many posters yes. For the population too in general i would say that something like 80-90 percent of players doesent check/raise enough in 3 bet pots deepstacked, and especially not on boards like this wich favours the 3 bettors range. Its not an easy task frequenzywise or combowise either, because its neccesarily not that often you play 3 bet pots OOP 300 + blinds deep: unless you buy in deep to begin with and plays in games where our villains is doing alot of 3 betting. In my game for example, very small amount of 3 betting is going on- and when getting deepstacked most people dont even 3 bet AK anymore.

We are closing the action. Against a reg we have history with this deep, I think our 3! Calling range needs some QQ and against a more aggro V, occasionally KK and AA. Not really worried about UTG limper. Probably pp looking to set mine or sc he shouldn't be calling with anyway. Plus he is OOP and will play his hand face up. Going to the flop 3 ways is not a disaster here.

If the goal is to 4! and get a fold I'd rather do it with TT, JJ and a few other weaker hands that are normally in our 3! bet calling range.

My argument for leading flop is pretty straightforward: there are 2 Villains and the limper could have a drawing hand. The situation is further complicated by the main V being OTB. His range could be wider than normal. I agree with you that this hand plays differently this deep. In this Hand, we don't know if V would raise or not, because we have checked flop.....So....

AP: what turn do you want to see? Any heart or overcard will tighten your sphincter. You cannot improve (realistically). V is OTB and can definitely have JTs also, so a 9 is no good either.

I agree xr line will fold out some AA and I agree with the essence of Petrucci's analysis above. But V has position. We will have to check any heart or overcard turn. If we have previously flat-called his flop lead, he is uncapped, has the initiative and position and is pretty free to pot/jam turn overs and hearts if we check. Then what the hell do we do?

Alternatively, a brick changes nothing and I suppose we could lead all brick turns.

I guess for me the fulcrum issue in this HH is whether V OTB range is wider than his normal 3b range. If it is xr is correct I believe. If it's not, I suppose we can turtle up and call him down to the river although it's going to be a bumpy ride and I cannot see how we avoid getting felted on most runouts unless it goes heart-heart or the board pairs.

^there’s really no need to be too concerned about a third heart hitting the turn here Spanish. Very few tight regs 3! suited wheel aces, so his only real potential combos are A-Jhh and maybeeee A-10hh.
I think the issue with donking in this spot is just how your donk range is so unbalanced to anybody who has half a clue. It’s almost exclusively very strong hands that would want to do this. This seems like a spot where we basically need to check our entire range OTF to me.

The argument against x/r seems to be that it folds out too much of Vs range turning our hand face up and letting V play perfect. As others have posted though our value range is super narrow here since V expects us to 4b KK, QQ at high frequency. I don't think our hand is as face up as everyone says. We have 88, maybe 1 or 2 combos of slow played QQ/KK, and KQ for value, the rest of our raises are behind AA/AK type hands. We have more draws than V. Also with a 20-25% PFR It's possible AJhh, and AThh are firmly in his BUT 3b range against a known reg HJ open that could be wide. There's no slam dunk easy button here but I prefer to take the 66 BB down now and fold out the AA/AK type hands here when we are OOP and the board is this wet.

This is a very common spot in live poker reg vs reg. There are certain issues that make the spot difficult this . 1) It is very difficult to balance a check raising range on these boards live without punting sometimes, so check raising against a reg on the nittier side is just punished by reverse implied odds and losing much value from drawing dead hands like AK. I know for instance, if i decide to bet that flop with AK I am snap folding to a check raise because most regs are incapable of bluffing in spots favorable to the 3 bettor.
2) My experience is that usually the most profitable way to play these situations is by donking to a good size. Donking accomplishes everything 88 is trying to accomplish. First, it doesn't give a free card on a wet board ( I see regs checking back AK and AA here). Plus, donking induces light calls and spazzes way more than check raising does ( People find donking offensive even ). So I would probably donk and let them cap their range and evaluate . Of course, the issue with donking in an optimal setting is it leaves our checking range super exploitable, on the other hand when having a range disadvantage most strong hands want to induce a cbet by checking but live poker is far from optimal and trying to play an equilibrium strategy is just leaving money on the table.

I would rather play some multi-street poker and win 360 BBs. Seriously this is shortstack take it down down before I get sucked out on mentality. We can still fold later in the hand if the board or the V give us enough incentive to do so.

We're not deep after the 3b...

^really? $65 3! starting with $1800?

So on the flop the pot is $197 and we have $1600 behind and we are no longer deep because of the 3!

For some reason, I never saw the 1

But now that it’s clear, you believe V is gonna give us 1.8k with AK?

A hell of a lot better chance if we check and give him the opportunity to barrel later streets as opposed to donking or x/r here and letting him off of the hook with AK.

Just call, we don’t want to narrow his range any further with 2 streets left to play. For example (rough numbers), if V 3b TT+/AQ+ (~5%) and doesn’t cbet(in a 3 way pot) w TT/JJ/AQ here, his range (QQ+/AK) is already 25% better sets. If he folds AA/AK 50% of the time to a xr, then 40% of his flop cont range is ahead of us w 2 streets left.

Xr could be better if V range was much wider + H had a wilder image and would often get called down with 1p on brick run outs.

Since the limper cold-called, we have more incentive to 4b, so I really never have KK here as a flat, and I feel QQ wants to 4b often as well. We have then, 4.5 combos of sets and 3 combos of KQs that we want to x/r for value on this flop. Some great semi bluffs would be AJhh/AThh and JThh for the super draw. That's just 3 combos, so we can certainly consider bluffing with the other suited connectors like 76+ once in a while, especially if V will release AA/AK OTF.

I'm never donking this flop. 3b pot with just 3 people..? Always checking to the PFR! Our donking range would likely be unbalanced because I don't see us leading out with top pair or draws here ever.

As to the question of getting jammed on... if V wants to stack off with KK/QQ/KQs and JThh, which seems reasonable, we have 33.5% with 88, so depends on how much we c/r to. It'll be close to BE.


EDIT: I think x/c flop also works, I'd just rather build the pot earlier when we're deep.

Ok, so it seems the opinions are pretty split here between all options on flop.

Hero ($1800), HJ: Early 30's white male reg, probably seen as TAG-ish, have played with V in this hand many times so we have some history, though I don't remember any huge pots of note

V (Covers, barely), button: 40's white male reg, generally plays pretty straightforward, solid overall, also TAG-ish, probably playing something like 15-20% PFR, 25% VPIP, 3-5% 3b

Hero dealt 88 in HJ

UTG limps, hero $20, V 3b button $65, limper calls, I call. Preflop is standard so not much decision-making here.

Flop ($197): KQ8

Limper checks, H checks, V quickly bets $135. Limper quickly folds. H calls.

Turn ($467): A

Check or bet?

If villain is 3 betting approx 3% here, we actually run the risk of overplaying our hand with a check raise. Like this guy could talk himself into a fold w/ AK.

If we are check raising and barreling, it sucks but we probably have to fold to a raise. I'd be more comfortable getting KQs in this deep because at least then we block his most likely value jams.

Edit: The A is the perfect card to completely nitroll this guy on. You kept every AK combo in his range and he may barrel it on this board. So never doing anything except checking and calling. His range is far too strong here.

I mean unless our read is off I don't think he is 3balling JT or AJ that flopped a combo. Maybe but doesn't seem very old guy TAGish

So now on the turn the only thing we are targeting is AK, AQ and maybe KQs.

I think ch/calling turn and river are fine at this point. If he has any of those hands he is going to continue barreling along with AA, KK, QQ of course.

We are 4! for value. Whether he calls or folds isn't really germane to the decision. Tightening up your 4b range seems like a really bad adjustment to make versus a reg.

xc and overbet donk brick rivers

Pending V's turn sizing, couldn't we just x/jam? We're 47% vs QQ+/AK/KQs/JTs. If he's got some AQ too, even better! I mean, if we x/c, then donk river, other than looking nutted, we still get the $ in. If we x/c river we're getting the $ in... either way we're not going anywhere.

Full disclosure, this is my range as asked for, not what our range should be.